U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,674,834 and 4,760,421 issued June 23, 1987 and July 26, 1988 to George D. Margolin describe electronic printers using an array of optical fibers which has a linear first face and an area second face. A cathode ray tube (CRT) is coupled optically to the area face and, for a printer, the linear face is coupled to a light responsive medium such as a xerographic belt.
There is no predetermining relationship between the ends of the fibers in the first face and the opposite ends of those fibers in the second face. Thus, the fiber bundle is not necessarily coherent. The relationship between the ends of the fibers in the two faces is determined during an initialization procedure, specifically, the procedure determines the address of light spots in the CRT face plate and corresponding positions of light (pixels) exiting the fiber ends in the first face of the bundle. The addresses are arranged in a sequence and interrogated in sequence for each of a succession of linear segments of the belt, the pixels being operative to discharge a linear segment of the belt selectively.
The selective discharge of each of the consecutive linear segments corresponding to a page to be printed results in forming on the belt on image corresponding to data stored in a computer memory. The data representing that image controls the presence and absence of light at each address of sequence. Thus, the data and the sequence of addresses determine the organization of the pixels in the linear first face of the bundle to faithfully reproduce the stored image. The electrostatic medium is part of a xerographic module including toner, transfer, and heating stations operative to form an image on plain paper.
Copending applications Ser. No. 468,833 filed Jan. 22, 1990 for Eugene I. Gordon (U.S. Pat. No. 4,975,729) and copending application Ser. No. 467,863 filed Jan. 22, 1990 also filed for Eugene I. Gordon, both assigned to the assignee of the present application, disclose scanner and printers which employ a fiber optic bundle as well as a linear array of light sources and a matrix array of light sources, respectively. These inventions are based on the recognition that the pixels originating at the sequence of addresses of the CRT faceplate determined during the initialization procedure need not be generated in sequence. Instead, those pixels can be generated in sets or all at once as disclosed in the above-noted patent applications respectively.